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May 16, 2010

... have been greatly exaggerated. Yours truly is snowed under of late, and I will be in four different countries in the next week, ash permitting. Many apologies for the dearth of new posts, but I do promise to pick up the pace when normalcy, whatever that means, returns. In the meantime I leave you with the thought that all must be well with the world if England are winning at cricket against Australia, and I for one applaud the manly spirit with which they have set about it. Roll on the Ashes.

May 04, 2010

‘She’s just some bigoted woman’. So said Gordon Brown, of some bigoted woman he’d just met. Now, I don’t happen to think there’s very much wrong with that. So far as I can glean, the comment was fair. In these few moments of absolute candour Gordon Brown seemed a more real human being than I’ve noticed at any other time. Unfortunately, however, he’s just some bigoted man.

I cite these things not by way of crass electioneering. It’s much more important than that. Gordon Brown behaved, we might say, like a politician. We tend to roll our eyes and mutter and then vote for one or the other of them. I should rather point out what is essentially wrong with politicians. Only a few seconds before his indiscretion, Mr. Brown had been smiling and chatting gaily with the aforementioned woman, his cracked smile of a political mask firmly in place. A few minutes after his unwittingly recorded honesty, the mask was back in place in order to deliver the most insincere set of wimpish apologies one is ever likely to hear. His private moment of reality was entirely framed by galling fakery and absence of spine. Yes, dear readers, I aver that Mr. Brown was not really sorry, at least not in the way he claimed. How much better it might have been if, during the initial conversation, Mr. Brown had properly stood up to his misguided voter. How much better it might have been if, after the microphonic gaff, Mr. Brown had stood by his real inclinations and explained in detail precisely why the woman was a bigot, and what his party values mean. Instead, the distance between reality and political front could not have been wider, and we can only conclude that insincerity defines our political leaders.

Out of context, I know, but then all UK MPs are donkeys

Insincerity, lack of courage, lack of spine. These qualities make not for a good leader. Yet we see them wherever we turn. One of these days, a politician is going to be brutally honest, say what he really thinks, back it up with a sound education in things political, legal and constitutional, and shock the pants off all of us. And that’s scary, because such a man (or woman) would not encounter any opposition. Our political leaders are supposed to safeguard our freedom, but they’re nothing but hot air and posturing. All this false and wholly unnecessary politeness on the one hand, and all their pointless bickering and pedantry on the other, does not fill me with confidence that our liberty is being vigilantly guarded. We should call them out; upbraid them for their fawning political correctness. We should call a bigot a bigot when we see one.